The Establishment Of Military Education System In U.S.(1881-1903)

The early military education in the US has existed since colonial times.At that time,this kind of education were mainly taught to citizen soldiers for there was no regular army.Seeing the great demand of soldiers,the American leaders began to build military education institutions along with the outbreak of the War of Independence.By the civil war,some military education institutions had been successfully built.Meanwhile,two basic regulations of its military education system newly appeared,one for regular army and the other for citizen soldiers.After the civil war,the American economic gained remarkable development,while monopoly capitalism gradually took control of the government.The US diplomatic policy was turned into external expansion from isolationism.At that time,many scholars and politicians of the state advocated the expansion,which led to a new trend of thought.However,in the process of external expansion,the USA suffered from huge opposition of foreign powers including Britain and France.Comparing with them,the US did not gain any advantage.Therefore,following the call from some scholars and senior officers,the US got rid of disarmament policy and made its arm adjustment.That was how the American military system was established in the course of arm adjustment.A group of senior officers in navy and army,like Sherman,Upton and Luce,they developed some mature military education reform ideas taking realities into full consideration,which assisted to the formation of the American military system.Firstly,the institutional military system of different levels should be established,of which military academies like West Point serve as the foundation.They mainly targeted to educate lower officers.Above this,there are junior officers from professional military academies that serve to educate them with military strategies.Then it comes to the top level of this system,the War College,studying on war issues as well as educating senior staff officers.Then,to establish a civilian soldier education system matched with the institutional military system,which includes two parts.The first one is to make military education activities and courses in common universities,while the second is to normalize the civilian soldier group ensuring the efficient soldiers in war times.At the very beginning of 20 th century,the system was completely established.The biggest adjustment comes from Root.He regroups all army academies and founds a new bulk of military colleges.It strengthens the connects among colleges in different levels,making a path to promotion and perfecting the whole system.In this period,the United States amends the Militia Act to closely control civilian soldiers.The Army Chief of Staff Wood reforms the education system of civilian soldiers,adding college students' military training camp.The American military system has tremendous advantages,there still exist some drawbacks.However,this system works quite well at present,which means we can undoubtedly learn great experiences from it to strengthen the construction of Chinese defense military education.